They Got Milk
Gus Van Sant and Dustin Lance Black on Bringing an Icon to Life

Academy Award-nominated director Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting) thought he was done with Harvey Milk. Once upon a time, he was actively working on bringing the story of the iconic San Francisco legislator to the big screen, taking over script development from none other than fellow filmmaker Oliver Stone during the 1990’s. But for one reason or another the project could never find its way to fruition, the Portland native moving on to other stories and leaving this one behind.

Director Gus Van Sant on the set of Focus Features' Milk

That changed with the arrival of writer Dustin Lance Black’s (the creator of HBO’s “Big Love”) new take on the project. “I first heard about it through Rob Epstein, the director of The Times of Harvey Milk,” recalls Van Sant. “Oliver had dropped out, and I took over for about a year and we developed a script [but] there were disagreements over [it]. Many years later Lance showed up with his and we were suddenly back on.”

Part of a massive press day for the motion picture, I was sitting at a conference table at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills with and handful of other journalists speaking with both the director and his writer about their highly anticipated new drama Milk. The film, generating massive amounts of awards talk not just for both gentlemen but also for stars Sean Penn, James Franco and Josh Brolin, has been one many in the LGBT community has been hoping to see for quite some time. In fact, in many circles the only man who ever could have brought it to fruition was the one seated right to the left of me.

“People claim they can see the work of a gay director in the same way they see the work of a female director or a straight director, that they can see it in a style or in the vibe or what the focus is,” says Van Sant introspectively. “But I think it’s hard for me to tell [because] I’m just a guy.”

“I do think it is the sensibilities of the stories that gay filmmakers choose. It’s not like the normal, macho, hetero thing. The way a [straight] director might deal with a love story there would be a certain attack, and even like Goddard his way of showing women is different than a gay man’s way of showing women. But it’s different, not necessarily [better]. It’s not macho.”

Someone across from us asks where Van Sant was when it was announced Milk had been shot by fellow San Francisco city supervisor Dan White in November of 1978 and what that moment was like for him. The director sits there for a moment colleting his thoughts. “I was driving across the country and I didn’t know who Harvey was,” he admits candidly. “I lived in [Los Angeles] and I was working for a comedian for a program called ‘The Groove Tube’ and the story was sort of encapsulated in a little news flash that the Mayor of San Francisco has been shot by a supervisor who then shot a fellow gay supervisor.”

Van Sant directs star Sean Penn on the set of Focus Features' Milk

“So there was this sort of [immediate] intrigue which really is the story. It was like there was some sort of in-house argument and that the mayor and the gay supervisor were connected and that the one who had shot both of them somehow has something against [them] both. But it was just a little news flash, and I didn’t even know who he was before the actual news announcement.”

A great deal of the third act of the picture is spent covering Milk’s legendary spearheading of the campaign to defeat California’s heinous Proposition 6, an amendment to the State’s constitution that would have made it legal to ban homosexual teachers and their supporters from working in the public school system as well as authorizing the immediate firing of all those already employed. With that being the case, it was almost inevitable our conversation would turn towards the subject of the recently passed Prop 8, a somewhat similar amendment banning Gay Marriage.

“There are two great questions there,” states Black matter-of-factly. “When you see the film there is a very different strategy to defeating anti-gay [legislation]. It takes kind of an attack on ‘The Closet’ against the campaign, which is kind of theme for Harvey which was self-representation, and that was missing from the campaign against Proposition 8. We didn’t hear the word ‘gay’ in much of the campaigning. There were no gay people depicted. We never introduced ourselves and said, hey, we’re the ones these [rights] are being taken away from, and that was really the opposite approach to Harvey.”

“To me, it’s [the defeat of Prop 6] is an important part of our history to show how we successfully beat these things using an approach of self-representation and really saying, ‘I’m the guy who’s going to get hurt.’ Having that sort of bravery, having that sort of belief that if they know you they’re not going to vote against you. So, in terms of what it looked like [in 1978] for our State is very similar but the approach from the gay community was very different and I hope this can be a useful [tool] for future fights because God knows it [this fight] isn’t over.”

Writer Dustin Lance Black on the set of Focus Features' Milk

Quickly pivoting back to the film itself, someone brings up the subject of Penn and why Van Sant wanted him for Harvey. “I had offered him the role back in 1998,” he answers. “There was another draft of the script I was involved with for Warner Bros. and was trying to team him up with Tom Cruise, who was going to play Dan. I think Tom was an appropriate age, Sean was like ten years younger than Harvey was, but I figured the two hot, young actors would give it some spin and we could just deal with the age [issue].”

“Later, after so many years had gone by, Sean’s name came up within our group and it took all the way to traveling to San Francisco for us to have our first meeting for it to dawn on me that, wait a minute, I already offered him the role like ten years ago. For some reason I had spaced.”

All of which leads one to believe the director must have been pretty certain the actor was going to be sensational which, in reality, wasn’t exactly the case. “I’d already gone through this process on how he could play the role,” continues Van Sant. “He’s like the most macho guy in Hollywood and he’s going to play Harvey Milk, but that surprise and that challenge makes it really exciting. It’s a hard job so that’s what makes it interesting. It’s not the obvious choice because that could be sort of bland and make the movie itself not have vibrancy. So you hope that Sean will do the job that he actually did, which is to completely infuse himself into Harvey which was incredible.”

And what about Cruise? Any thought asking him to come aboard as Dan White? “Yeah, both times,” he answers. “The first time he was on the set of Eyes Wide Shut. This time Matt Damon was going to play the role but when he had to bail Cruise was like the next guy [we approached]. He checked it out but decided not to do it.”

Van Sant (center) setting up a scene in Focus Features' Milk

In the end, Brolin, fresh off his portrait of embattled lame duck President George W. Bush in Oliver Stone’s W., took over the role of White delivering arguably the strongest performance (outside of Penn’s) inside the picture. It is a highly sympathetic rendering of the man, easily one of the most vilified figures in all of LGBT history, and the question arises as to why the filmmakers decided to go in that direction.

“There had to be something sympathetic about him,” responds Black. “Harvey was drawn to [him]. For most of the time they knew one another and worked together [he] tried to pursue a friendship and thought he could educate Dan White, didn’t think he was hopeless. So, you have to at least see who that person was, see Dan White through Harvey’s eyes.”

And the not-so subtle theory that Dan might have himself been closested? Was that the screenwriter’s own personal theory or was it an idea born out of his research? “It’s both,” he states simply, “but it’s also Harvey’s perspective and [he] had said that to several people during his last two weeks. He actually did it as a warning saying he [was] worried Dan might be a closet case.”

“But it’s also not the statement of the movie that Dan was a closet case,” interjects Van Sant. “It is something that Harvey says.”

“Right,” agrees Black. “It is a Harvey theory, and Harvey has a lot of theories but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily true. I don’t think we’ll ever know what Dan White’s sexuality was or was not.”

Van Sant, Josh Brolin and Penn chat on the set of Focus Features' Milk

The director nods his head in agreement before quickly bringing the conversation back to where it began and that is Brolin’s performance. “Josh, when he played W., I noticed at the end of the movie I really wanted to get to know George Bush,” chuckles Van Sant. “But that was Josh, that was something he was able to do, and I think it was good for Dan to be [the same]. He wasn’t George Bush, he was a fairly likeable guy, and Josh was trying to play [him] as accurately as possible. But, then, Josh just tends to be a likeable guy. He sort of has this innate ability to make you like the character.”

And what does the director hope audiences take away from the film as they exit the theater and will gay audiences have a completely different reaction than straight ones? “No, I don’t, other then it [the movie] is about a community that they are a part of,” he answers rather calmly. “[Milk] is about to me political, grass roots organizing and making it work, about [how] you can do it. That’s what I want people to take away from [it], and it doesn’t matter if they’re straight or gay or not.”

- interview reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle

Additional Links:

• Milk Theatrical Trailer